BIL for the love of god, please stop!

[minifingerz]

.. on holiday with SIL and BIL. They are good people and SIL in particular is the loveliest person I know. But BIL's conversation consists of the following:

• him telling you how brilliant he is at everything. He knows more than you about everything, including your job

• him telling you, in detail, how clever he was as child, how he went to every top private school in Scotland, and never did any work, and came first in everything, despite being younger than everyone else. And he went to a top university at 16, and studied multiple degrees, and came top in everything. He got scholarships without sitting exams - just had people offer them to him

• he was brilliant at all sports

• he has done every job you can think of, and been brilliant at it, and told everyone else that he worked with that they were crap and got the better of them

• he studied for multiple degrees while working and found them easy.

There is not one single subject on god's earth that he doesn't know about. He never asks any questions that aren't designed to show how clever he is. I have never seen him show any genuine curiosity about anything - showing curiosity isn't possible if you already know everything about everything.

It's exhausting.

He is a medically retired ex middle-manager from a utility company.

How am I not going to scream 'oh for fuck sake, stop bullshitting!' across the dinner table for another two days? I'm already having to police myself to suppress rampant eye-rolling and darting appalled looks at DH (BIL is DH's sister's husband).

Why do some people men feel the need to do this?

Just do a head tilt and say "do you feel that you have fulfilled your early promise?"

My god, I wonder if my BIL has a secret double life, he sounds exactly the same!

I call mine the David Brent of brother in laws! He makes me cringe with his little anecdotes - like the time he was playing the guitar for his wife's boss (he took his guitar along to the dinner party, as you do) and everyone was astounded at the way he was simply 'plucking melodies out of the air'.

SIL and MIL are always fawning over him. He's alright, nice enough, but he thinks he's practically perfect in every way.

Gawd I'd just tell him to stop being such a boring twat and pack in the lies!

I love Anna's suggestion.

I'd lump myself in with him in the "promising" stakes - he'd hate that.

Head tilt. "Yes, I was a clever child too, isn't it funny how we both ended up so mediocre! Well, the world can't get by without middle managers, can it? Ha ha."

This reminds me of the time I met a Mexican author (he was published but he wrote appallingly). He was reminiscing about how as a young man he taken his first book to José Vasconcelos (a legendary Minister of Education and a very erudite man) for him to read. "And when I went back he asked me how many books I had read to prepare the book. I told him 1800 books and he looked at me at said, "Don't be a writer", because he knew how much writers suffer!"

It must be stultifying to grow up believing that you are super-intelligent and I hate people who have no curiousity, curiousity is basis of all real intelligence.

I think in our family the piss taking would be relentless and remorseless, but we are Welsh and live to take the pompous down a peg or too. I imagine BIL would have a nifty nickname, like Dai Brilliant or something.

I can just hear my sister, "Oh he's off again, come on Dai Brilliiant, tell us how you broke the school record in the egg and spoon race, What a guy!".

He obviously doesn't excel in social skills.
Sounds like my BIL. Exhausting yet rather comical.

OP what on earth are you doing on holiday with this man ?

Don't do it again. Ever.

My Bil is a bit like this and has never really forgiven DH for being more successful. He spends a lot of time giving evidence of his intellect and how he would be ace at DHs job and mine but would hate both !

We however could not do his! Middle manager too.

I think I would (after much alcohol consumption) point out that like true beauty, true intelligence is something that other people will naturally notice. If you have to tell people that you're intelligent.... well you can finish that sentence however you like ;)

My bil is like this. Always a tiny speck of truth in it all but everything is spun to make him look like God himself. Saddest thing is his daughter is now lying at every opportunity. She is seven.

DO IT!! Do all the brilliant takedown ideas on here and update us on how it goes!

My prediction is that he will claim to be 'spearheading changes which could revolutionise the gas/ leccy / whatever industry'.... Or maybe he was put in his job as some kind of a secret experiment by management who recognised his superior skills??

We need more on this story OP!

I have a family member who does this a bit - tries to astound us with her depth of knowledge on, well, everything. Strange, though, she did not have a career.

But she left home very young. So problems there of some sort.

Sad really as she prob was a bright person at school. Something got in the way and messed her life up.

No - I won't be doing any put downs.

SIL is the kindest, smartest and funniest person I know. She's also the most loyal, otherwise she would have lost patience with him years ago. It's a proper love match - they adore each other and can't see each others faults (hers because she hasn't really got any other than a tendency to wear rose tinted spectacles, and his because she's so loyal and loving). I wouldn't do anything to upset him and put him down because it would also hurt her.

His situation is pretty awful too. He was medically retired with heart problems before the age of 50 and is really quite poorly now, despite being young. He has loads of horrible symptoms not helped by the fact that he eats too much and smokes quite a lot still. (his smoking isn't aggravating his asthma and heart disease according to him - the doctors have told him this). I can't imagine how awful it must be to have to be his consultant, given how much more BIL knows about medicine... I think a lot of the insane boasting is compensation for the fact that his life is now very limited.

I also suspect he's on the spectrum. SIL suspects it too. My ds has HFA and can be very ...um... unthinking about the impression he's making on others. But ds is only 10 so I'm going to try to train him into modesty so he doesn't end up with no friends. Incidentally, BIL is always saying 'I was just like that as a child' in relation to ds, which sends shivers down my spine. DS thinks he's GREAT. He's always repeating his comments, and passing on BIL's nuggets of wisdom.

My bil too.only his line is how brilliantly he's done something mundane. We honestly had how brilliantly he peels carrots one meal. And how everyone adores him, and how wonderful the whole world thinks he is at his job. Funny how I know various people who deal with him in his job and all have similar opinions to me. I try not to let on I know him to people. Sil positively encourages him and is nearly as bad.
Quite sad really.

"how he went to every top private school in Scotland"
Which presumably one by one expelled him, otherwise why would he have gone to more than one?

'And yet you ended up a middle manager instead of running the world. Pop your arse on a cushion and tell us where it all went so wrong. I'll put the kettle on'.

He was reminiscing about how as a young man he taken his first book to José Vasconcelos (a legendary Minister of Education and a very erudite man) for him to read. "And when I went back he asked me how many books I had read to prepare the book. I told him 1800 books and he looked at me at said, "Don't be a writer", because he knew how much writers suffer!"

Oh. My. Bookshelves What a rhino hide!

I have a relative just like this, except it's all about money.

I have so much money.
I have such a good job.
I can afford this and that.
You can't. I can.
Aren't I amazing?

Drives me insane. But is ultimately based on his complete insecurity. I don't think he's anywhere near as confident in himself as he loudly proclaims.

I once had someone like your BIL sitting behind me on a plane. I was flying back to the UK for a funeral on a Friday evening commuter flight. A man in the row behind spent the entire hour (which seemed considerably longer at the time) telling his neighbour all about how wonderful he was and detailling all the amazing things he'd done and the fantastic places he'd been. You name it, he'd been there/done that/been given an award for best t-shirt design. To cap it all, he had the most boring, monotonous voice I have ever had the misfortune of hearing in real life. Remember the Father Ted episode where a priest with a boring voice makes an announcement over the shop PA system to create a diversion so that they can all escape from the lingerie department? This man's voice was worse than that.

It had been a long day, an even longer week and, unfortunately, I had recently been watching The Thick of It on DVD, which always throws my swear-o-metre off kilter.

After what seemed like an eternity, the pilot came over the intercom and said that we were starting our descent, at which point the man behind me said "already? well, listen to me talking all the way through the flight. I don't know why I did that, I don't usually sit around telling my life story to strangers on a plane."

Readers, to this day, I cannot explain exactly what came over me at this point. I blame a combination of tiredness, grief and the large G&T I'd had during the flight. I let out a sigh and said, loudly and clearly

"well shut the fuck up then you boring cunt"

DH went bright red and stuck his elbow into my ribs. The man on the other side of me burst out laughing, gave me a small round of applause and said "thank you! I've been dying to say that myself for the last 50 minutes". Later on, as we were leaving the airport, I saw him laughing again as he pointed me out to a woman who had apparently been waiting for him. Boring man didn't say another word for the rest of the flight and scuttled off as soon as they opened the plane doors. The man who had been sitting next to him gave me a wink and a thumbs up sign at the luggage carrousel.

I promise I'm not usually that rude not outloud anyway but I have to admit, it felt good.

I see you don't want to use any putdowns (I admire your restraint), but I was going to suggest you ask him how he copes with such an inability to stick at anything.

Sympathies to you, I have a BIL who is an opinionated twat and self-appointed expert on everything. Unfortunately his wife (DH's sister) is also a self-appointed expert on everything with no sense of boundaries. I see as little as possible of them since the big blow-up where I told her to stop interfering in my life.

Yes, maybe I need to be channeling my inner Malcolm Tucker a bit more...

"I think a lot of the insane boasting is compensation for the fact that his life is now very limited."

I think you're spot on about this. You sound like a really lovely, insightful person who is genuinely just wound up by this very weird and rather insecure behaviour.

I would see it as an act of charity to let him grandstand for a bit. And then firmly move the conversation onto less competitive subjects! (Make a list. I'm serious. It is incredibly useful to have ready-prepared standby topics to divert attention from danger areas).

"We had one holiday (from hell) with him in which he insisted on giving all the kids maths lessons at 8am and lecturing us about our inferior parenting skills."

Maths lessons on holiday? If I ever have kids I'm teaching them to tell people like this to "F*ck right off mate!"